iButterfly wins at Global IT “Oscars”

February 15 2013, 10:18 am | BY Lynchy | No Comments

iButterfly.jpgiButterfly, representing Hong Kong and China, has just won the “WSA – mobile Global Champion 2013 m-Business & Commerce”. The World Summit Award Mobile (WSA Mobile) selects the world’s best mobile content within the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (W.S.I.S).

 

There were 435 submissions from 102 UN member states for the competition this year. 40 winners of 28 member states are awarded in the 8 categories respectively. Hong Kong has broken the record and won 3 awards, among which, iButterfly has also won the Global Champion in m-Business & Commerce.

Jason Chiu, CEO of Cherrypicks, said: “With Angry Bird as one of the past winners, the World Summit Award is the best proof that HK has world-class mobile innovation. We are honored to have iButterfly voted as the Global Champion by a judging panel of over 60 experts from around the world. Cherrypicks is committed to making a difference in the global scene of mobile innovation by developing excellent mobile user experience with creative application technologies.”

 

Ken Matsumura, President of Media Palette Hong Kong said: “We are excited that we won one of the most honorable achievements in the global award of WSA. Media Palette Hong Kong would leverage our competitive advantage to help clients formulate one-stop advertising strategies to integrate mobile, media and social media landscape. To expand the regional market, iButterfly would launch in Vietnam and India in February, extending to a total of 9 markets in Asia-Pacific.”

 

“iButterfly is a valid commercially capable platform that could deliver AR for mass markets. I started to see the light. And I project that by the year 2020, the total global media audience for AR will hit 1 Billion people”, said by Tomi T Ahonen, Mobile Visionary, Key speakers of WSA, lecturer at Oxford University on mobile and media.

 

Dr. Hon. Elizabeth Quat, JP , Member of Legislative Council and World Summit Award Board of Directors Executive Member said, “iButterfly winning this global award on behalf of China and Hong Kong proves that Hong Kong is capable to develop most advanced and creative mobile app. Hong Kong should play a very important role in mobile information technology in the future. “

 

iButterfly is a social gaming mobile app with Augmented Reality (AR). Users could acquire branded coupons or contents by physically hunting and catching 3D flying butterflies. The notion of iButterfly was first introduced in Japan by Dentsu Inc., and with the joint partnership of Media Palette (Dentsu Media) and Cherrypicks, iButterfly has taken the Hong Kong market by storm. The program recorded over 1,000,000 downloads throughout the iOS and Android platforms nowadays, with 140,000,000 butterfly coupons distributed.

Launched in Hong Kong in May 2011, iButterfly has run over series of excellent interactive campaigns for advertisers including adidas, Samsung, Unilever, Colgate, Centrum and MTR Airport Express, etc. iButterfly has been launched in 9 Asia Pacific regions namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, China, Vietnam, India and Taiwan. Recently, Asia Miles iShop launched a campaign with 390,000 butterflies caught. Watsons your personal stores of China got her fan base increased from 700,000 to 1,000,000 with a campaign carried out since last September.